rpm.espn.com: Dale Jarrett

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Wednesday, January 8
Updated: January 13, 2:40 PM ET

Dale Jarrett
By Jonathan Baum
ESPN.com

Team: Robert Yates Racing
Car/sponsor/make: No. 88 UPS Ford

Dale Jarrett
Jarrett

STATS

Year
Rank
Wins
Top 5
Top 10
Best finish

2002 9 2 10 18 First, Pocono and Michigan

Career 30 151 228

2002 recap
The good: After finishing 500 points back in the championship race of 2001, Jarrett cut that margin to 385 last season. Of course, that point deficit placed him ninth overall after a fifth-place finish in '01. Still, DJ did win two races and was one of only eight drivers to score double-digit top-fives (10). Jarrett also finished the season with eight top-10s in his last 14 races.

Season highlight: Jarrett's win at Pocono in June, which he followed with a second-place finish from the pole at Michigan -- where he would win a race later in the year -- a week later. Jarrett had also finished fifth after starting 31st at Dover the week before Pocono.

The bad: This is two pronged. First, Jarrett notched only one top-10 and finished outside the top-20 in four of his first seven races (partly thanks to two blown engines), burying him a season-worst 24th in points. Later in the year, Jarrett was unable to take advantage of his win at Michigan because he bookended the victory with a 28th at Bristol and a 31st at Richmond.

Season lowlight: Suffering a blown engine early in the race at Kansas after starting sixth, accounting for his only finish outside the top-15 in his last 10 races.

Dale Jarrett

Key stat: 27. That's how many years of Winston Cup experience 2002 teammate Ricky Rudd has. It's also the age of 2003 teammate Elliott Sadler.

2003 outlook
What needs to be done: Not all that much, really. Jarrett needs slightly better luck and can only hope that Sadler will run well right off the truck, giving DJ an important ally on the track and a technical partner off of it.

Prediction: Jarrett is one of NASCAR's elite drivers and showed no signs of slowing down last season. He was more a victim of a competitive field than anything else. And while it's hard to imagine that there will be as many surprise success stories as there were in 2002, it's very easy to imagine DJ cruising to a top 10 and competing for a championship if the engines can hold up -- and if the Yates garage can avoid the turmoil of last season's Rudd saga, which is surely will.

Your take
Will Jarrett return to being a top title contender in 2003? Here are your thoughts on DJ's prospects.

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